


The Doctor, the Match, and the Storygirl

by Lil_Redhead



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chronicles of Narnia Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Fairytale elements, all the usual suspects - Freeform, and anne tells amazing stories, in which gilbert is smitten for his whole life, nature elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28345065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lil_Redhead/pseuds/Lil_Redhead
Summary: After returning home from medical school, Gilbert discovers that the neighbor girl, Anne, has gone missing. He won't rest until he's found her, even if it means taking a leap of faith and venturing into his father's old wardrobe. (A Narnia!AU).Or: Anne and Gilbert explore Narnia together and weigh their dearest priorities.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	The Doctor, the Match, and the Storygirl

**Author's Note:**

> This story was my Secret Santa present to @londonsboy on tumblr! 
> 
> Merry Christmas, Jacinta!! <3 Talking to you and getting to know you a little better has been such a light during this holiday season! As I'm AWFUL at enemies to lovers, I decided to try something else that I hope you'll enjoy just as much. This story was a labor of love, but it's my hope that you read it and get lots of warm nostalgia feels. 
> 
> Notes: This story contains many elements from the Chronicles of Narnia, so I tried to respect and honor that original text as much as possible. I researched as best I could, but if there are any inaccuracies, please forgive me! I've also written this story in what I call "Newspaper Snippets" to try out a new form of prose. It was fun (and frustrating) to try out, so I hope you enjoy!

**1: A Child’s Lore**

Gilbert remembers the Storygirl. He remembers the red twists of hair braided down her thin shoulders, each tied with bowed ribbons. He remembers the monarch butterflies balancing gingerly on her freckled fingers and the dimples haloing each half of her smile. He remembers cloaking himself away under the shadows of the treeline and watching the girl move slowly through the tall grass. With care and ease, she urged the butterflies to amble onto a nearby flower. 

“Would you care for a story?” she asked them. Gilbert remembers straining his ears to pick up any trace of her voice, tender and easy on his senses. “I won’t fault you if you fly away, but if you have a few moments to spare, I have such wonderful tales.” The butterflies remained in place, fluttering their wings slowly in the warm sunlight. 

“Very well, a story you shall have!” continued the Storygirl. “Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named Cordelia. Oh, but she didn’t start out that way. You see, for most of her life, Cordelia suffered the great calamities that all poor orphan girls do…” 

Gilbert’s back slid down against the tree, somehow too captivated to tear his eyes away. He settled on the ground, pushing aside verdant brush to keep his sights on her. Never before had he taken himself as a fellow who enjoyed fairytales, yet something about this tale and her voice left him no choice but to listen. So he listened. He listened and listened until she whispered, “The end!” The blues of her eyes turned toward the trees straight at him as if she’d known he was there all along. And then, she ran off, disappearing into the heart of the valley forever.

He was only thirteen then, but he remembers. 

Now, he keeps the memory of the Storygirl in the same place he stores the memory of his father’s wardrobe—deep in the parts of his mind full of things he’d seen as a child, but could never prove the existence of as an adult. Myths, legends, and fancies of a child’s imagination. There lives the memory of the Storygirl and the days of yore when his father’s wardrobe held clothes, evergreen trees, and sweet breezes. 

Gilbert knows they’re not real. But sometimes he wishes they were.

**2: A Silhouette**

Avonlea is uncertain and strange when Gilbert finally returns home. As his carriage carries him through town, the heavy feeling sinks deeper into his chest. Where has that ethereal beauty of the island gone? It used to seep out of the red soil like petrichor, but now the air has lost its fragrant charm. Gilbert can’t help but feel as if maybe the magic PEI days of his youth had been but a childish whimsy, stripped away by inevitable adulthood. 

Then, the hazy memory of the Storygirl returns and for a brief moment. Uninvited, but not unwelcome. Gilbert closes his eyes and lets himself recall the details of her face. There’s comfort in his own childhood myths, as if he is not so far gone, after all. And when he opens his eyes, he’s home. 

From the doorway, it looks like a portrait—Sebastian frozen on the parlor sofa with low hung shoulders, Mary holding his head to her middle and caressing his bushy silk hair. Gilbert emerges from the blue shadows of the entryway. 

He _should_ announce himself properly. Perhaps attempt reentering with a wide smile and some kind of good news to brighten the mood. Instead, he hears himself say, “Who died?”

Mary tears away from Bash with a gasp, soaring over to the door to pull Gilbert’s face into the crook of her neck. 

“ _Gilbert!_ Were you due home so soon?” she says after drawing a watery breath. “I think we’ve lost track of the days!” 

“Yes. I’m on time down to the minute,” Gilbert replies with a smile. “Are you...going to answer my question?” 

Mary’s brows knit together in confusion as she pulls away to examine the state of his face. Her fingers smooth over the frown lines at the corners of his own eyes, but it’s Bash who answers. 

“No one died. At least, we really hope not,” he explains, distracting Gilbert from his vague answer by pulling Gilbert close for a hug of his own. “None of that for now. Take your coat and shoes off before someone starts to believe that this isn’t your own home.” 

For the rest of the day, Gilbert tries to whittle out the truth from Bash at any opportunity he gets. At the lunch table, after recounting tales from college and his boring graduation ceremony. At the kitchen sink, elbow deep in sudsy water. At the foot of the garden, pulling weeds and sprinkling water onto thirsty soil. He tries again and again, but Bash does not budge. 

When evening rolls around, it’s pull has already lulled Gilbert to sleep on the parlor sofa. Across from him, Mary stitches together a small hole in one of his old shirts until her own exhaustion makes her prick her finger. 

“Can’t keep my eyes open a second longer,” she yawns. Depositing a kiss on Bash’s head, then Gilbert’s, she murmurs, “Don’t stay up too long. I want to keep looking in the morning.” 

Bash lets a moment pass when he hears their door shut, waits a few seconds more, then crosses the room to where Gilbert is sprawled out on the sofa. The newly minted doctor stirs at the feeling of his brother shaking him awake. 

“Mary’s gone to sleep. We can talk now.” 

Gilbert’s eyelashes are heavy, but he pries them open at the stony tone of his brother’s voice and pushes himself to an upright position. 

“So...What have you been hiding from me all day?” 

Bash’s lips press together. 

“Did you know the Cuthberts adopted a daughter?” 

“No, I didn’t,” Gilbert replies, confused why it matters. 

“They adopted her just before your father passed away, I heard. You went away to our steamer, then straight to college, so you never had a chance to meet her. But when you sent me and Mary to this house, she was here waiting for us. Someone had told her that she’d be getting new neighbors, neighbors that might face the same sort of hardships she did when she first arrived. She showed us around Avonlea, helped Mary clean the house after being empty so long. Her name is Anne. Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.” 

“Did something...happen to her? Do you need me to see her?” 

“You can’t,” Bash spits bitterly. Then, remembering himself, he says, “She’s not sick.” 

“I don’t understand, then.” 

Bash sighs, balling his fists in his lap. 

“Mary and I went to visit her son in Charlottetown for an afternoon last week. Anne offered to come and give everything a good cleaning while we were gone, as a neighborly gift or something. We tried to tell her that it wasn’t necessary, but she insisted. She’s not one to lose battles. She arrived a few hours past dawn, but when we came back, she was gone. Then we found out she never went home to Green Gables. No one in Avonlea has seen her in over a week.”

Suddenly, it makes sense to Gilbert why the house is weighty with the feeling of _loss_ . It _has_ lost something. Gilbert doesn’t know this Anne, but whoever she is, she took the island’s light with her.

“What do you think happened?” Gilbert asks, rubbing his knuckles over his eyes.

“Someone broke in. Found a woman all by herself with no one around for miles. You can imagine the rest.” Bash holds his fist with his other hand, as if he might hit something if he lets go. “Anne is...a unique woman. Kind and brave. But to Avonlea she is strange and of varlet stock, and with the way they see Mary and I… Only a few families have been willing to help us look for her. Would you? In the morning? You know Avonlea better than us.” 

Gilbert doesn’t hesitate. 

“I will.” 

**3: A Recollection**

_It just doesn’t add up,_ Gilbert thinks bitterly, splashing cold water on his tired cheeks. His reflection stares back at him, looking just as dejected as he feels. _But what else could there be? I’ve already scoured the house. No signs of a struggle. Nothing broken or stolen. Guess I’ll just have to look just as hard in town. See if anyone knows anything._ He scoffs. _It sounds like something out of a children’s book. A fair maiden walks into a house that swallows her up whole. Too bad I’m a doctor and not a knight._ He means it only in jest, but it sparks the flame of an idea in the farthest corner of his mind—the corner containing his childhood and its fanciful inventions. 

And then, there it is. A memory, a reminiscence of sorts. 

One wardrobe. 

One door drawn open.

One small Gilbert Blythe crawling into it. 

He couldn’t have been more than six or seven when it’d happened, nor can he remember why he’d even ventured into the wardrobe in the first place. Perhaps it had been a particularly clever hideaway in a game of hide-and-go-seek. Or maybe his father had sent him in search of his coat and something had tipped him off that there was _more._

The memory itself is relatively uneventful. Little Gilbert opened the wardrobe door, crawled in, and somehow, miraculously tripped into a bank of snow. The bank of snow was only a mere plot of land in a world Little Gilbert was not brave enough to explore. He’d scurried back to the door, but left it cracked open for just a moment longer to memorize the world he’d found. It left an image in his mind that he carried with him forever, a memory just as fond as that of the Storygirl—a patch of evergreen trees, sweet air, and an impossible winter magic. 

_Let’s pretend for a moment this memory is actually a memory and not just a childish imagination,_ Gilbert ponders. _If Anne came to clean the house, maybe she opened the wardrobe to clean it and organize it. Could she have fallen in? Maybe she’s lost! Maybe she has no way home and—_

_Dr. Blythe, get a hold of yourself. Exhaustion has made you mad._

_You’ll assist Bash in the morning, you’ll question the town’s people, you’ll come to the bottom of this. But you won’t be able to find her by courting such preposterous ideas._

**4: An Act of Trust**

His resolve lasts an entire hour.

Then it dissolves hopelessly and gives way to the memory of the Wardrobe-world. Pacing in front of his father’s bed, Gilbert weighs whether or not he should indulge his childhood suspicions. It plays over and over in his mind, a frustrating possibility.

At first, he fights it.

If Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is really as headstrong as the Bash has described her to be, then perhaps she left on her volition, tired of small-island life. It can’t be that hard to believe that a woman could abandon a monotonous past in favor of whatever this young century has to offer her. Gilbert’s very _last_ suspicion should be that Anne somehow found a magical world inside a wardrobe and never returned. Yet, here he is, nudging his foot along the carved trim of the wardrobe with an itching to _open it_. 

_Damn it all. What is there to lose?_

Then he does open it. The hinges of the doors screech after being left to sleep, untouched for a decade. At first, it smells of mothballs and the stale smell of his father’s clothes. But seconds later, there’s a hint of sweet—

Gilbert slams the door shut. _Absolutely not,_ he scolds himself. _You’re hallucinating. You want this woman to return so badly that you’ll pretend she’s anywhere but dead in a ditch. But then again_ … Gilbert turns back to the door, placing his hand on the newly dusted wood. Who would know if he indulged in this wild feeling? Shouldn’t he, a trained doctor and an intelligent man, listen to his own gut? 

_Alright_ , he decides. If he’s going to do this, he isn’t going to do it halfway. 

With a short breath, he draws the door open and closes his eyes shut. Then, he’s crawling in, a grown man squeezed into the tight confines of a wooden closet. It’s difficult to breathe above the heavy smell of age and wool, but just like before, it slips away into an unexpected sweetness. Gilbert crawls closer to it, hands and knees finding new space with every pace forward. Behind him, the wardrobe door is abandoned and opened, but Gilbert doesn’t come back out. 

Instead, his fingers find tall, soft grass and his intuition cries in victory.

 **5:** **A Twinless Shoe**

Gilbert allows himself exactly ten seconds to sit and stare at the pleasant forest clearing before doing what any logical doctor might do in his situation—secede to the visual proof of a magical world and promptly begin observations.

On a first glance, the impossible world-inside-the-wardrobe doesn’t seem all too different than his Avonlea. There are clusters of trees surrounding the clearing, each crowned with vibrant shades of green, moreso than those of home. A mystical softness teems in the air like a breeze, loitering along his skin until he is a mess of goosebumps. A single lamppost towers over him catching sunlight, unlit but clean of moss or dirt. At its base, a leather boot, dainty and slim. 

Something clears its throat, propelling Gilbert’s soul from his body at the shock of it. He whirls around, grass stains on the knees of his trousers. Before him, sits a trio of white-tailed foxes, peering at him with more expression than should be allowed for such creatures. Gilbert tries to steady his pulse but finds the effort unsuccessful. 

“They’re only foxes,” he reasons with himself. “They make all sorts of strange noises. No cause for alarm.”

“That’s a foolish delusion,” the largest of the foxes answers. 

Gilbert blinks. The fox quirks an invisible brow.

“I beg your pardon?” Gilbert stammers. 

The fox stretches, equal parts annoyed and bored.

“With the types of humans that are supposed to stumble out of that door, you think you’d have a firmer head on your shoulders. Wonder what Aslan chose _you_ for?” 

“I dunno, Rambleleaf. Maybe he’s here for entertainment?” the second fox pipes in. Turning her sunbright amber eyes to him, she asks, “Do you sing? Dance? Tell stories?” 

“That _is_ what he brought Anne for,” the third fox adds. “Maybe one storyteller wasn’t enough.”

“I have a hard time believing that this schmuck could tell stories as well as Anne could,” Rambleleaf counters. 

“Anne’s _here_?” Gilbert spits out, desperate. The conversation between the foxes dies out as quickly as it started, replaced by a stunned silence. They exchange a glance, as if deciding whether or not to indulge this fumbling fool in Anne’s whereabouts, but Gilbert is desperate. “Is Anne Shirley-Cuthbert here? I’m told she has red hair and freckles.” 

“You...you speak as if you don’t know her?” Rambleleaf queries, eyes narrow. 

“Not personally,” stammers Gilbert. He clambers to his feet and rushes to the foxes, who jolt but don’t shy away. It seems as if he has surprised them, as if they’ve never had a human kneel so desperately before them. “We’ve been looking everywhere for her, trying not to fear the worst. Her parents are friends of mine. They’re worried sick because one day she left to visit my family’s home and never returned. _Please_ , will you take me to her. I need to make sure she’s okay.” 

“How did you know to look here?” Rambleleaf states, unconvinced. Gilbert can give them no answer, but the truth. 

“A feeling. I once came once here as a boy and remembered it, though I can’t say I know where _here_ is.” 

Rambleleaf ponders this, his tail coming up to the underside of his chin, like a hand scratching at whiskers. His eyes trail to the boot underneath the lamppost, then fall undecidedly on the poor fellow before him. 

When finally he says something, it’s—“Who are you?” 

“Me? Oh, um, I’m Dr. Gilbert Blythe.” 

“Well, Dr. Gilbert sir, I’m Rambleleaf, or just Ramble if you’re nice about it. Welcome to Narnia.” The name _Narnia_ sends a warm thrill down Gilbert’s spine to finally hear it. The existence of it is already enough cause for hope. Rambleleaf nudges Gilbert’s hand with a clawless paw and points over to the single boot laying sideways in the grass. “You’re in luck. We’re good friends of Anne’s. She sent us back to find the shoe she left behind, so if you want to see her, you can follow us back to the Larsack village. It’s not far from here. Just a bit north on the west border of the Western Woods.” 

“I’ll follow you,” Gilbert decides resolutely. 

“Good. Then grab that boot and we’ll be on our way.” 

Gilbert does as he’s told, pushing aside the frustration of being told what to do by a _fox._ With the shoe in his possession, he curses that he didn’t think to bring any sort of satchel or carrier case. Then again, he isn’t supposed to be here long. Just long enough to find Anne and bring her home. 

Then, without wasting another moment, the foxes disappear in the wood, leaving Gilbert to follow. 

And he does, the door to his father’s wardrobe entirely, _completely_ forgotten. 

**6: A Duet**

They trek through the thicket of the forest until the soles of Gilbert’s feet have grown sore at the unfamiliar terrain beneath them. Having left his pocket watch sitting on his desk back home, Gilbert can’t be sure of how much time has passed—enough certainly for the foxes to have eased their snide opinion of him. He finds they like to listen, asking Gilbert all sorts of questions but offering no answers of their own. 

As it turns out, Gilbert is not so bad a storyteller, after all. 

“—but children believe in magic the way adults in my world don’t. So I told the little girl that the cure for her stomachache was a feather on the underside of her toes and all her laughter made her forget that she had eaten too many biscuits. Sometimes I think medicine has more possibilities than we can know. Certainly being here has…”

Gilbert slows to a stop and turns his ear to the sky. He draws in a quick breath of hope at the faint lilt of laughter, music, and one rich voice towering above it all. 

He takes off running, hopping over Rambleleaf and sprinting down the path. A crowd’s cheers and the minstrel songs grow closer and louder with each wide stride. He all but crashes into someone at the back of the crowd, scanning the clearing for a head of red hair and a face of sandy freckles. There are a few tents set up along the circle of the crowd, and in between them must be a hundred people sitting and standing, all with their attention locked on one person. From the back, Gilbert finds his view obstructed by some particularly tall Narnians. Just as he begins to plan a route through the mass of people, a soft paw nudges his ankle. 

“You’re just in time to hear her speak,” Rambleleaf says at his feet. “Can you lift me up so I don’t get stepped on? I want to see this too.” Gilbert kneels, allowing Ramble to hop onto his shoulder before embarking into the crowd, drawing closer and closer to the makeshift stage. 

And then he sees her and all the pieces of his mangled heart slant together, restoring it in one, breathless moment.

“The _Storygirl,_ ” Gilbert heaves quietly. 

“That’s what we’ve taken to calling her here, too,” Ramble says. 

His Storygirl hasn’t changed a bit. There are still halos crowning her smile and kingdoms of possibilities in her eyes. But the young dreamer and commander of words Gilbert had seen in the fields all those years had grown so tall and beautiful that he had no words left for himself—only a fiery warmth and an insatiable desire to _talk_ to her. 

“That’s Anne there?” Gilbert whispers to Ramble. 

“Unmistakable, right?” Ramble murmurs back.

“I’m going to get closer.”

“Oh, good! I can’t hear from all the way over here,” Rambleleaf agrees, nudging Gilbert with his nose. 

Gilbert collides with a few shoulders and elbows as he passes through, but only because he cannot tear his eyes away from her. He feels like the thirteen-year-old lad with weak knees and a pining heart all over again. When they’ve reached the makeshift stage, Ramble waves his tale to the Storygirl. The flash of white catches her attention and through the next words of her tale, she gives a dimpled smile and nod. 

Then her eyes fall on Gilbert and her tongue stumbles. He watches her gaze travel from his heart-struck eyes, to his Avonlea clothes, to her boot in his hand. Anne chuckled and extended her bootless foot. Gilbert blinked down at it, the “Doctor” part of his mind wondering if she wanted him to examine it. 

“The _boot,_ Gilbert,” Ramble hisses in his ear. 

“ _Oh!_ ” 

Anne continues to keep the crowd enraptured in her tale even as Gilbert slides the boot over her lacy stockings and ties the laces. When he’s finished, she bends low to him and whispers, “Care to help me with my story?” 

“ _Me_?” Gilbert chokes. 

“Yes, Gilbert Blythe. _You_.” 

A shiver shoots like a flash of summer lightning down his back. _How does she know my name?_ Gilbert’s mind wonders on repeat. He feels himself nod, only to be swept up onto the stage with her strong hands a second later. She offers Ramble a hand down, pressing a kiss to the top of his fur, then turns back to Gilbert. 

“Play along!” she murmurs quietly. 

Gilbert nods once more, turning nervous eyes to the crowd of onlookers. Beside him, Anne shoots back into her carefully woven tale. 

“It would’ve been easy for Cordelia to resign herself to the fate everyone wanted for her. But could she submit herself to everyday mundanities? Milking cows and pulling weeds? She could see the honor in these tasks, but somehow knew that her destiny laid elsewhere. She turned to a neighboring lad and asked him his thoughts.” 

Anne grabs Gilbert’s fingers and poses her body as if engaged in a conversation with him. Her tongue stills, and she urges Gilbert to take the next few lines. 

“Well, er…” _Get it together, Blythe._ He takes a deep breath. “The neighbor lad assured her that she bore enough heart and talent to succeed at any task she put her mind to. That it wasn’t a matter of _finding_ her destiny, but...creating it? For herself.”

Anne smiles. Gilbert feels it thrum pleasantly behind his ribs. 

“Cordelia asked the neighbor lad if he would help her find the better feelings of her heart, the truth behind her soul and desires.” 

“He agreed,” Gilbert says resolutely. “Because the lad had already traveled across the world to find her. What was another journey?” 

**7\. A Pair at Tea**

“You _must_ tell me how you managed to find me!” Anne exclaims, pouring sweet tea into two small stone goblets. Her hair is loose over her shoulders, and Gilbert wonders if it’s the reason for the raspberry, rose smell of her.

Gilbert hasn’t quite shaken the timid nervousness. This is how he imagines he might feel if he were engaged in conversation with the King of England—only Anne is much more beautiful, even if she is just as intimidating. His eyes follow her hands as she hands him his tea, and he accepts the offering as something to occupy himself with.

He ignores her question. For now, at least.

“How...how do you know my name?” 

Anne smiles into her goblet.

“I’ve dusted your photograph hundreds of times helping Mary clean your home. You’re often all she can talk about when we’re polishing the silver or scrubbing windows.” 

“Really?” 

“Indeed. I know plenty about you, Dr. Blythe.” 

“Just Gilbert is fine,” he hums, cheeks warm. Then his eyes dim and he stares at his own reflection in his tea. “What sorts of things do you know?” 

Anne ponders this for a moment. Her fingers twist strands of hair into a gentle braid as she speaks, “I know that we just missed each other when we were children. That you left the island the same winter I arrived. I know that you’re the golden boy of Avonlea, and that all the mothers have been counting down the days until your return to marry their daughters to you. I know you won a prestigious scholarship that allowed you an excellent medical education. Congratulations by the way. I know—”

“ _Alright_!” Gilbert coughed. “I almost feel ashamed that I know barely anything about you. Only that you’re selflessly kind, a legendary master of storytelling, and that you’re unearthly beautiful.” 

Roses flourish her cheeks in lovely shades of red. Gilbert bites his lip to keep from smiling. 

“Anything you’d want to know, you only need ask. I’m an open book.”

“Then may I ask what it is you’re doing here?” Gilbert begins carefully. “The Cuthberts are worried sick. Bash and Mary, too. We all thought something terrible had happened to you.” 

“Terrible? Why? I’ve only been gone nearly a day. I’ve disappeared for longer periods of time into Charlottetown to visit friends.” 

Gilbert blinks.

“Anne, you’ve been missing for over a week. You came over to help clean the house a whole week ago.” 

Her face shoots up to him. 

“You must be mistaken. This isn’t my first time visiting Narnia. Time travels more quickly _here_ than it does in Avonlea. That’s the way it’s always been.” 

“All I know is what I’ve been told.”

Anne rises from the table, a hand over her mouth. 

“A _week?_ But...but how did you know where to find me?” 

It’s Gilbert’s turn to blush, but he answers honestly. 

“I think I accidentally stumbled upon Narnia as a boy, but always thought it was a dream or an imagination. When you went missing at my house, I just had this...feeling I couldn’t shake. I’m still having a hard time believing it, to be honest.” 

“For a man of science, I think you are doing admirably,” Anne says warmly. “I admit, I stumbled here in a similar way. I was going to wash your fathers old things because they’d grown so dusty, but I tripped into the wardrobe.” 

“That’s kind of you. To take care of my father’s things, I mean. Especially when you weren’t acquainted with him.” 

“Mary told me he meant a lot to you,” Anne answers easily. “Besides, you’re a man now. I thought you might like to wear some of his things to help keep his memory closer by. I know I wish I could. Wear my mother’s dresses, that is.” 

“Oh,” Gilbert frowns. “I apologize. I’d forgotten you’d lost your family too.” 

“An unhappy sort of thing to have in common with someone, I’ll admit,” Anne replies, a sad smile on her lips. “But you and I both have our makeshift families now. _And_ this new little friendship of ours. That brings me to this question, though, Gilbert. How long do you plan on staying?” 

“How long do _you_ plan to stay?” Gilbert replies, heart catching speed in his chest. 

“For the duration of the match,” Anne replies, as if it were obvious. 

“The...match?” 

“Ramble didn’t tell you? There’s a Storytelling Match that’s taking place right now. Whomever can spin the best tale will get to tell a story to Aslan, the King of Narnia.”

“Ramble did say something about Aslan bringing you here for entertainment.” 

“That’s only a guess,” Anne corrects warmly. “I’d like to win the match and meet Aslan, and _then_ I plan to return home.” 

Gilbert isn’t sure what to say next. The right thing to do is return home and explain as best he can the truth behind Anne’s disappearance. At the very least, fabricate some lie that assures everyone of her safety and inevitable return home. 

But to his surprise, he finds he doesn’t want to leave. He wants to witness this storytelling match, support Anne and witness her victory. Maybe what Anne said about time in Narnia is right, after all. If they stay in Narnia for a while longer, perhaps it will be like no time has passed at all. 

“Will you stay, Gilbert?” Anne asks quietly. “I know you’ve just met me and that we’re barely acquaintances. I won’t fault you if you return back home to your patients and to our families. But…” 

“But?” Gilbert whispers hopefully. 

“But if you’d like to stay for a while and explore Narnia with me, I would welcome the company. In fact, I’d be glad for it.” 

“I’m so newly home that I don’t quite have patients yet,” Gilbert says offhandedly, mulling the idea over in his mind. “And there’s no guarantee that if I leave that I’ll ever be able to come back and see you. To make sure you’re alright.” 

“There’s not,” Anne agrees, eyes glimmering with warm light. 

He surprises himself with what he says next. 

“Then I’ll stay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this even a little, I'd love to know! <3 I hope you all have had a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, or a fantastic holiday, depending on how you celebrate. You all make me so proud by surviving what I know has been a very difficult year. Know that good change is around the corner, and as always, if no one has told you today, I love you very much!! 
> 
> The next you see me, I'll be a year older (turning 23 this NYE ♥) and 2020 will be a conquered memory. 
> 
> Feel free to stop by on tumblr (@royalcordelia) or on twitter (@sweetdaisytessa) xx


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